Digital Stories in the Classroom

I think that there are many ways that a teacher can incorporate the use of digital stories in a classroom. I actually have some experience with creating a digital story since I has to create one for my Methods teaching class with Kelly Chandler-Olcott. Instead of posting my rough cut of a story, I decided to post this one, which I found on YouTube. I chose this because it is a student telling her family's history through a digital story format. She has music, smooth transitions, and also a real sense of voice throughout the entire video. I spent a good 3 or 4 hours on my digital story - it's a complicated process trying to fit the pictures with the script, reading the script, adding music, and then timing everything so the recording flows over just the right image at the right time. It can be tiresome, but by the time I was done with my video, I was extremely proud of myself - and that feeling only intensified when I showed it to my classmates. Having a personal experience with crafting and sharing a digital story, I can support Richardson (2010) when he quotes Marco Torres by saying that "these videos 'should have wings' and be created for real audiences outside the classroom" (p. 123). The digital story I created required me to reflect on my thinking and learning through my experiences student teaching, and because I knew that it would be viewed by many people, I put a lot of effort into it. I think that this will hold true in a K-12 classroom as well - students don't want to put in a ton of effort if they know that their work is not going to be recognized in any way. Digital stories changes that, because it can be posted and viewed by a huge audience. Incorporating a digital story as a part of the year-long portfolio assignment that many schools enforce is just one way to get students involved. When I was student teaching last semester, I wanted my students to create digital stories at the end of our Outsiders unit, detailing how they were perceived by the world vs. who they really were inside, since it follows one of the many themes in the novel. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to work on this with my students, as I had to leave before we were able to finish the novel. This is just one way to incorporate digital stories into the teaching of literary devices like theme - but it could be used to discuss setting, mood, irony - practically anything!
Like this video does, another way to use digitial stories in the classroom is to introduce and recognize the multiple cultures that may be represented in the classrooms. This girl talks about the history of her family while linking it to Iraq's culture and the country's history. Students could easily do this as well, whether it is used as a community building process within the first couple weeks of school, or as a side project that can be worked on in conjunction with other units. Figg & McCartney (2010) assert that developing 21st-century skills is a function of individuals expressing their own voice using written and oral language, as well as many other electronic formats and media" (pg. 43). Digital stories allow students to have a voice - a voice that someone will be listening to long after the project is finished. Teachers who incorporate opportunities like this for students to work with technology for classroom projects is a way for students to practice their 21st centruy skills in a controlled and purposeful way. It seems that technology and learning can be seamlessly linked.